Unlike male arousal, female sexual desire is not visible. That makes it very difficult to measure, although its not for the lack of trying. A number of scientific studies have tried to establish what turns women on by, Usually by making them watch a porn film with a lubricated probe in their private fou-fou. The trouble with this strategy is that it overlooks the fact that female sexual desire is responsive to emotional closeness; trust, intimacy, the ability to be vulnerable, non-sexual touching, communication, and affection are key motivations for female response and you don’t get any of that from a probe and a porn film.

Women with low sexual desire obviously need to be screened for physical and psychological illness, but there is a wealth of evidence to support the link between sexual dissatisfaction and unhappy relationships. Several studies by Davidson & Darling, and Schenk and Pfrang, & Rausche have shown that partners’ experiences of unresolved conflicts, not feeling loved, and emotional distance, are associated with lower sexual satisfaction. It stands to reason that a woman who is unhappy or depressed might not feel like having sex, but when a woman can’t or won’t have sex with her partner she increases the risk of her partner seeking sex outside the relationship.

A study carried out in 2001 at the genitourinary medicine unit at St Mary’s hospital in London provides suggests that male infidelity may play a part in low sexual desire in the primary partner. The survey was carried out on 100 female patients of whom 20 were suffering from some form of sexual dysfunction and seven were suffering from low sexual desire. Six of the seven women suffering from low sexual desire had only ever had sex with their long-term partners but curiously, five of the seven were suffering from sexually transmitted infections. The team concluded that some women with low sexual desire do not want intercourse but they agree to have sex with their regular partner anyway, however, their partners still need a sexual outlet outside the relationship, and subsequently, they transmit a sexually transmitted infection back to their primary partner. They are now investigating whether STD acquisition might lead to low sexual desire.